LE BLOG

"Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born. An in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, and to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret... Work is love made visible." Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Well that's a thought!

I haven't written a blog post in a long time, and I feel all sorts of things I want to share on here, many I feel too embarassed to.

I have been going through many changes in the past few months, a beautiful new home and a garden studio freshly completed! It's taken a while to set-up, and on a more personal note I had a miscarriage a few weeks ago, and so it's taking a while for things to get back to "normal" so to speak...

I am at a sort of crossroads with my work you could say, I can feel that something new wants to emerge, and I don't know "how to" birth it. Or rather I think I keep on being in the way. What's in the way is much much much fear, fear of letting go of "older" ways of working, older ways of making marks, fear that the new stuff won't be as good as the old one, fear that no one will like it or buy it. Fear that anyways I'm not good enough, never have been never will be. Seeing so much stuff on Instagram and feeling overwhelmed at the amount of art there is in the world, I feel swallowed by it all, confused, wanting to go into so many directions, scared that all of what I'm seeing in seeping through me and what I make is just a mish-mash of other people's stuff. I'll never be original, will never amount to anything, will never be good enough.

I keep on finding artists on Instagram who have 100k + followers... What? How? How do I... STOP!! That's not what art and life are about, I don't think.

The other day, I expressed to my husband that I really really want to make some sculptures, I haven't done so in a very long time and it's icthing me. He said "don't make sculptures, no one buys sculptures. You can't sell those at The other Art Fair". It's so easy to fall into this, so so easy. But truth be told, right now I feel I have nothing to loose. So I got some plaster and I am gonna make some sculptures, without feeling that they have to be something to be sold, or be liked. And let them nourish me, and the rest of my works.

And to end this post, a shout out to my friend Laetitia Sfez who's lauching her new brand "The Sundown Society", sheinterviewed me in her blog a while ago.

So I have to be completely honest here, I have been feeling very very stuck with my art recently. I have not had a lot of drive, or desire to do much, and working from home now has its own challenges.

This morning, after a good bodywork and meditation session, I have come up with a brief for myself. Because I really do need structure, I need some kind of framework to work inside of. So I have decided that for the next four weeks, I would create artworks "from the heart", whatever that means (this came to me in a meditative state, so sometimes it won't make much sense to my head...). I want to take time to let artworks be, so often I rush, I feel I need to bring a conclusion, or else they'll escape me or something. I want to build them, slowly, gently. I need to give myself and the artworks room to be, to breathe. To really listen, to go slow, to love every step, enjoy every mark. To trust these artworks, however small or insignificant they may feel, will feed into everything else I do. To make them, in spite of my head wanting to wait for the "perfect" time, place, material, to make them "aimlessly", without the pressure of needing them to be somewhere specific, for somewhere or someone specific. To let them grow, like children and plants. To take time to appreciate their beauty.

Oh there it goes again, I have not written on this blog in ages. This always happens, blablabla... Well it just does. Life happens, moved home and currently working from my spare room in my house. That is a big change, and I need to get used to it.

Last night I went to an event organised by Be Smart About Art, who really offer some fantastic resources for artists. I am thinking of becoming a member, as it would feel like being part of something throughout the year, which I could really use! Working alone from a studio is really lonely business, and sometimes I can just use that little push. It's also about being part of a community I guess. One of the things which inspired me most was the hand made brushes brought by the "Modern Eccentrics", they were running a small workshop using natural inks they made, and invited people to create marks using brushes they made themselves. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to participate, my mind was telling me to do "useful" stuff last night and so I didn't attend. But the picture on the flyer is just stunning, it made me want to dive into sculptures again and also highlighted something I am deeply interested in, which is the idea of the transient, and also making your own materials as an artist. Thinking about what we put into the world is a deep concern of mine, and there's a lot I don't love about the manufacturing of art materials as well as myself making so many sculptures and paintings that at times I have to throw away...

On Saturday I went to a artist "crit" organised by Turf projects, and someone suggested that I "unpick" my sculptures and reuse them to create new work: light bulb moment. My sculptures have NEVER been fixed, in fact, most of them fall apart rather easily, as they are mostly pinned or stitched badly... When I created them, I loved putting them into different places, making them look different every time they changed context. As they're made of soft fabrics, they don't have "one way" of being exhibited, they move, change, transform themselves.

I also thought about using very basic techniques such as papier maché or Salt dough, both childhood loves of mine which are just fantastic, using recycled materials or non-toxic ones. I want to create "proper" sculptures again, and these could inform my drawings and paintings. I feel that January thing of making some very new and exciting works... And this morning fell upon this Artsy article about "non-serious" art and materials... It's all there! Happy new year.

L. Cornelissen & Son in London, my own studio space "full of things waiting to be turned into other things" and "Told You Twice" painting by Heather Day.

This morning in the car, I had the delightful surprise of stumbling across a BBC Radio 4 show about one of my favourite art shops in London, L. Cornelissen & Son. Beautiful wooden floors, ancient smell reminiscent for me of my former drawing school in Toulouse, smells of oils, pastels, wood and the staggering beauty of intense colour pigments. There's no place quite like it, although being French there's the Sennelier shops in Paris of course, but the kindness and generosity of the staff at Cornelissen make it a truly unique place, a chance to take the tunnel into the past.

A few sentences caught my ears this morning as I was listening, somebody used the phrase "Jars full of potential" and the presenter spoke of the shop being "full of things waiting to be turned into other things". Music to my ears and my heart, the deep feeling and knowing that it is also all I am doing, being an artist means to be surrounded with things that have potential, little jars of beauty, and indeed all of my papers, collage materials, paints, pencils, brushes, they are all waiting peacefully to be turned into other things, for transformation to occur. My studio IS full of things waiting to be turned into other things. What a beautifully simple way to put it...

There's an object that has been waiting patiently for a while now, something I used compulsively when I was studying on my MA in Glasgow. It's a little microphone, a little gem of a recorder. I used to speak to it, record myself making art or simply talking. I've had some intense moments with that little machine, and I haven't had any use for it since. However in the past few days, something has occurred in me, something unexpected, I want to start recording and interviewing people I know, people i find interesting, people I admire. It may even turn into a podcast... Shhuuut... It's a secret...

In the recent few days, I have been taken by the works of an artist I have just discovered called Heather Day. Heather's work is absolutely gorgeous, so is she, and she lives in a truly beautiful reconverted warehouse in San Francisco of all places. One of those people you cannot help but be just a little bit envious of... Heather seems to be working with numerous brands and that seems to be supporting her career as an artist very well. I find it interesting, refreshing and very contemporary. It's the first time I come across someone who does that. She has even worked with Facebook to develop some wandering paintings. There are so many ways to be an artist, and Heather seems to have found a way of doing so that works well for her and has a flourishing career. Hats off to her!

Folks it's been a very long time... Every time I start a blog (this is probably my 5th), there's a always a point where it dies down a bit. It seems inevitable somehow, the blog supports me up to a point where things are better, I have gotten what I needed from it and I do not feel the need to write in it any longer. This one is no different.

Let's see if that can shift.

In the past few days, I have been working on a new series of "Digital Découpages" (a series of digital artworks -collages made from photographs of my own works- entirely made on Photoshop), as I am participating in two art fairs in September and October (Roy's People Art Fair in Angel and The Other Art Fair at the Old Truman Brewery). I enjoy working on these immensely, they really are a lot of fun, they're quick and I get get many ideas down quickly. I also love how they give me an opportunity to "re-work" some of my work, in a way open-up each piece to another possibility, one I choose not to take when I made the work.

It has to be said, they are also a good way for me to make up the money for the stands, as art fairs are very expensive. I am also working on a screen print I will actually get to make in August before the start of RPAF. I have never really made a proper screen print, just played around mostly with single layers I then painted on top of. I was always reluctant to finding some more "commercial" artworks, however I think it is indeed necessary!

Today I want to write about those 15 minutes when I "leave" the studio (but don't). I take one last look at the works I have produced during that day, take photos, and... Oh let's change this bit, or that bit. And I end-up staying 15mins longer, or an hour. In those 15 minutes, there's so much less pressure, and perhaps I've come to a certain place in the process where it feels like I've been "rehearsing" all day for that final moment, and I just go for it. I almost "don't care", in a good way, and often I end-up being more productive than I have in the previous hours of studio work. And there is this lingering feeling that I don't want to leave the pieces alone overnight, that I will miss them like babies. There's for sure an attachment to my pieces, especially when they are not quite finished and anything is possible. I love that feeling that anything is still possible, that I can still completely fuck it up or turn it into something great.

I'd like more of the day to be like those 15 minutes, care-free and intense.

My head has been buried in the sand with competition deadlines for the past few weeks. There are four I want to enter int he next couple of months, and so I am working towards creating new works for them all. I'll probably need to submit a few older works too.

Competitions can really be so disheartening, they're expensive to enter (especially when you have to pay them back to back in the same month!) and the chances of actually getting in are so small. Many of them make some very conceptual choices when it comes to their selected artists, and to be honest this year I won't apply to some major ones because I know I simply don't stand a chance. I'd rather focus my energy on some that I actually feel a kinship to, and for the first time I read all of their blurbs about how they judge and what they are looking for.

This year I discovered the Luxembourg Art Prize on Facebook (thanks to being connected to so many artists around the world) and when I read what they were looking for, I literally jolted: I had never come across this type of language in the arts in the UK, and I feel a real connection to what they are saying, and it feels so refreshing to me.

"For example, the Committee may be sensitive to the following points: the originality of the work, technical mastery, coherence of the work, freshness, novelty, historical continuity, the artistic, literary, historical, scientific or philosophical references in your work, the message conveyed, the poetry that emerges from the work.

The Committee hopes to find works that have been produced in a unique moment of grace experienced by the artist at the time of their creation. These magical creative moments are what make a work unique and unlike any other."

For the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful that I actually stand a chance. Luxembourg here we go!!

I wanted to write about flowers, and about a few thoughts that have come since buying a bunch. I was slightly mocked and looked down on when studying my MA for bringing flowers into the studio to use as inspiration. Flowers are not very post-post-modern or post-post structural (me neither, don't know what it means), and so it wasn't seen as a very "cool" thing to do, looking at flowers or nature in general. And I wasn't putting any irony or cynicism into it either, I wanted to access something through the flowers, something about simplicity and beauty. Now I have said it, the very big taboo word, beauty. It is so sad that we cannot appreciate the simple beauty of a flower, that we've become so cynical that e cannot let it touch us. To me, it seems that all these things have been belittled in the post-modern ear in art because they are attached to the feminine in our subconscious. But because of that, we don't allow ourselves to take from the flower big lessons, flowers and nature have so much to teach us, about colour (just this photo of a close-up shows how many different shades there are, from the pale yellow to the pale pink, to the white and the fuschia, how extraordinary!) about being alive, about breathing, about dying, about transformation ultimately. On this note, I love these quotes from « Mindfulness & the Art of Drawing : A Creative Path to Awareness » by Wendy Ann Greenhalgh:

“What I discovered that day when drawing a rose is that when we’re drawing and seeing with awareness, we draw closer, and come into relationship with the thing we are drawing. In truth, drawing is all about relationship, because it requires us to build connections with the world around us, to get to know it better and deeper through the process happening on the page. When we draw something, the nature of that object, place or person can communicate itself to us and we can reciprocate and reply –show that we have noticed- through the marks we make as we draw. What we are starting, in fact, is a dialogue, and talking is how relationships are formed.”

“When we are drawing and seeing mindfully, then, we are encountering the world in an intimate way that we may never experience anywhere else, or in quite the same manner. The connection we form with what we are seeing, what we are drawing, goes beyond the intellectual, beyond words and language, or even marks on a page. It even goes beyond the thinking-mind. This is the relationship of two bodies in space, an intuitive relationship of the spirit, where we begin to sense the nature of things, their “is-ness”, their “being-ness”. And when this happens, we can simply be with them in our completeness too. More than that, we start to lose our sense of subject –us in here, and object- it out there."

On this beautiful Saturday, I bought myself a beautiful bunch of flowers and went to the farmers market, a weekly ritual of mine. And of course, one of the reasons why I bought flowers is that I want to draw them. And there it starts, the "monkey mind" limitless loop of feeling that I have to "do" something, that I have to sit down and make artworks. And they have to be brilliant of course please, they have to be earth-shattering, the best I've ever done. And in that endless mind game, there is absolutely no freedom, in fact I cannot breathe. And I draw or paint very quickly, as if my life depended on it. But in fact, all along I was missing the point, missing the moment where I can relax into the object I am looking at, where I enjoy every single mark, one after the other, slowly, as if I was sipping a delicious elixir of life. And here the analogy with food is very pertinent, because I have noticed -as I am studying Macrobiotic cooking and going deep inside my patterns around food and how I eat- that I do exactly the same thing with food. Now I am a good cook, I love doing it, it's creative, it's all about colours and textures, you can play with tastes and shapes, I feel like I'm in some magical laboratory in the kitchen. And although I put so much care, attention and creativity into the food I make, I then sit down and gobble it at the speed of light, scared at every fork full that someone is going to steal the plate away from me. And in both cases, in art as in food, I don't get to enjoy it very much, I only ever get glimpses where I really savour the food or the mark. I want to create all of "it", all of life, all at once. I want to eat all of it, all at once too.

So what about pausing? What about taking a minute or two to enjoy, to really watch the brush as it is leaving behind a trace or gooey pigments on the page, to make sure that before I rush to make the second mark -panicking it won't be good enough- I take a few seconds to breathe? It's all down to breathing, really. A very good friend of mine once told me "the only thing there really is, is breath" and it's true. The worries, the paranoïas, the rollercoaster of thoughts, it's all in our heads. So back to the breath, the only "real" thing.

“When we are drawing and seeing mindfully, then, we are encountering the world in an intimate way that we may never experience anywhere else, or in quite the same manner. The connection we form with what we are seeing, what we are drawing, goes beyond the intellectual, beyond words and language, or even marks on a page. It even goes beyond the thinking-mind. This is the relationship of two bodies in space, an intuitive relationship of the spirit, where we begin to sense the nature of things, their “is-ness”, their “being-ness”. And when this happens, we can simply be with them in our completeness too. More than that, we start to lose our sense of subject –us in here, and object- it out there." From « Mindfulness & the Art of Drawing : A Creative Path to Awareness » by Wendy Ann Greenhalgh

A while ago, a thought came to me that I would like to tidy-up my drawers where I stock my papers and artworks, a big chest my husband made for me... It's been a mess from day one and I can never find what I am looking for in there. But I was being so resistant, tidying-up was gonna take precious time on my work and those new pieces I want to make. But somehow, in the midst of making work, I found myself tidying those drawers without even realising. And it was a lightbulb moment: I found so many treasures in there, old works I had completely discarded, works I had started but not finished, bits and bobs, scraps etc... If there is one thing I love, is to completely forget about an artwork in progress, put it away because it isn't "good enough" and find it again months or years later, and to be able to see it in a new light, see in it a fresh new potential I hadn't seen before.

I started to cut-up, to throw paint around, glue pieces of paper together to change the scale of a work, I used a new exciting sponge tool I made to createmarks, used a big brush (as I want to make bigger works), not caring so much about the preciousness of it all. Lately, I have been very precious about paper, not wasting it, making sure it stays clean, and I have been working smaller and smaller scale wise. Nothing wrong with that but slowly it felt my world was getting much smaller. In the past two days, I have told myself "even if I think it's rubbish, I can cut-up a part of it to use it in something else, maybe in a year's time".

And it's been so liberating, I hadn't felt this excited about making work in a long time. I have dreamed about them, and have been sad to go home in the evenings and leave them all alone in the studio... Being less precious, putting the pressures of creating art "good enough to be sold straight away" to the side has been a gift, and it needs to carry on, as that's how works develop, get refined and keep being exciting, relevant. You can get very stuck and routine-like even when your job is to be an artist. And my sketchbook has been a very precious source of inspiration indeed. I have been drawing in it lots, it's been like a visual diary for me.

On Monday, not really knowing what to do with myself, I went to Kew Gardens in an attempt to draw beautiful plants, enjoy myself and start a sketchbook practice again. Now for those who don't know me, I was once known as the Queen of Skecthbooks. That's right. When you study fashion, sketchbooks are the absolute centre of your universe, they are the moon, the sun, the water and the earth. You never go anywhere without your current project's sketchbook, you make them into truly beautiful objects, each page better than the next, collecting fabrics, images from magazines, drawing, sketching design ideas, creating the mood for the clothes you want to make. I absolutely adored them, it was my favourite part of studying fashion: I wasn't so interested in making clothes in fact... I was really into making these beautiful books, drawing in them, baring my soul. People used to say, "Your books are so beautiful, but they're not fashion, you should study fine art"... And I did, after finishing my BA I went on to study and MA in Painting at the Glasgow School of Art.

About 3 years ago though, somehow, I stopped having sketchbooks where I drew. Just stopped. I guess having started a "career" in the arts meant that I had "no time" for silly doodling. And oh gosh I miss it! I read recently in an artist blog that sketchbooks are very important and safe spaces for artists, and it is so very true. It's a deeply personal, intimate space where we get to safely try out new things, make mistakes, none of it matters, none of it will be exhibited anywhere. And that feels so good when every piece of work has usually got some pressure attached, a next show, a newt fair... Will it sell? Is it good enough?

So the other day, I started drawing in my sketchbook again, I have two to be precise! And I did some stuff on loose sheets too, drawings where I am "allowed" to do whatever! Isn't it strange that I need to give myself permission to do that? Well it's just the way it is.

Which brings me to the subject of master Cy Twombly. I went to see his show in Paris the other day, he is one of my favourite painters of all time. Oouaou, I was blown away, such beauty, such freedom. Not everyone gets it, some people feel he's just messing around, doing stuff "children can do" (that dreaded comment that doesn't mean anything). The scale of them, the amount of energy there is in each piece, how they hum, vibrate. I cried in front of the series "Nine Discourses on Commodus", absolutely breathtaking. You feel the murder, the blood, the hatred. I know what it takes to make good abstract art, and his are, in my opinion, as good as it gets. There's so much poetry in every mark he makes, in every space he leaves. I could imagine him taking time to just be with the paintings, waiting for the mark to build up in his hand.

And it reminded me that when I started really painting abstract works in 2010, I began making very abstract expressionist works, à la Cy Twombly and Joan Mitchell. Perhaps everyone who paints abstract pictures goes through that phase. Ans as I progressed, I went further and further away from that, and I recently rediscovered the love that I have for drawing, and especially drawing with coloured pencils, meticulous, detailed, time-consuming things that have been very satisfying. But... I miss the freedom, I miss the "fuck it" attitude there can be in painting more loosely. And my intention is to somehow mix those two different ways of working, to mix the "gribouillage" (scribble in French) and the more detailed works of mine. So I'm going to do just that. This week, I will prepare some surfaces, mounting beautiful Fabriano paper onto canvas, which allows me to work heavily in paint on top. Let's see where it leads me...

I have just come back from a long, relaxing Easter weekend in the countryside. My husband and I went to stay with some friends in West Sussex, and we also spent a day near Stroud in the West country. Coming from London and immersive yourself in a life of walks and slow time ticking is rather exotic, and is actually a little bit disorienting!

I have been craving more nature in the past few months, connecting with flowers, insects, the sun and just the general peacefulness of it all. I was in Devon a couple of weeks ago, and after 4 days, I really felt I could connect to plants in a deeper and much more meaningful way. I "become" the plant in some strange way, I "go inside" of it, it goes inside of me. And this connection is immensely useful when you are making art, because it stops to be just about you, you become available for "what is" as opposed to the stuff you project onto it. From this place, I can always let the art create itself, it grows slowly, organically. It surprises me, and if I'm there to listen, it will tell me where I should go next, which mark to make, in joy and with innocence, like a beginner. In art like in life, being in a space of "unknown" as opposed to "known" is the most powerful act there is. Each time, it will be different, each time, I create as if for the first time.

And of course this space is not always so easy to access, it takes work to maintain it, to access it. It is as if I needed to "seduce" this space, like a male bird of paradise flaunting its colours to attract the female, show it that I care, show it I work to preserve it. And this morning, after a few days away, I don't feel in that space at all. I feel worried, I feel I don't know where to go in the next piece, I have lost the flame and the space. All there is to do, is to sit, relax, and breathe. So I will.

I've decided to have a go at writing a blog again. It's not always easy, I often feel silly in the things I want to say. But I'm gonna try.

I've been very inspired by an artist's blog recently, the one by Eva Magill-Oliver, who's work is absolutely gorgeous. And here it is again, I guess the infinite cycle of comparisons. My work isn't as good as hers, not as beautiful, not as mature. That's where my mind's going with it today. Dear monkey mind!

Which brings me to the subject of a book I'm reading, given to me as a gift from a student of mine. It's called "Mindfulness & the art of drawing: a creative path to awareness" by Wendy Ann Greenhalgh. It's a very useful little book and I am very much enjoying reading it. Strangely enough, even though yes I am a practicing artist, I meditate, do regular bodywork and am familiar with the "mindfulness" themes, I have found it refreshing to connect those mindful practices to art in a way I hadn't quite given myself permission to do. Somehow, in the midst of life's routines, cooking and eating very well, doing bodywork and meditation everyday, my art practice had become routine too, and not so mindful. Being alone, I often feel the need to listen to the radio, podcasts, audiobooks etc... There are many distractions around. And because making art is natural to me, because I've been doing it for so long, I can almost do it "my eyes closed" so to speak. In fact there are many exercises in this book that speak about drawing your eyes closed. I had tried before, but the suggestions Wendy makes to the connection with the tool, the paper, the breath, I have to admit I hadn't been paying much attention to.

Reading this book, amongst other things I am doing in my life, has made me want to reconnect to my practice in a different way. I have also been blown away by a video my good friend and artist Rod McIntoshhas recently made called "With the breath". Rod connects his yoga and meditation practices brilliantly with his work: he cannot start a piece without breathing, you can see it when he paints. And sometimes he may feel crap and it may not work out, but being perfect isn't the point. The point is to take a second to check in with oneself, in honesty, where am I at today? And to take a second to consider the space we are in, the tool we use, the paper we will draw on.

And these are things I teach to my students. So I need to do myself what I preach a little more. Yesterday, I made some works just for the hell of it, without caring about the results. Just do something. And ever so slowly, I could see the emergence of some new marks, of something new that wants to be born. But if I am not available, they won't come.